Skiied to Death
by Nova-chan
Summary: They're all going to a ski resort. But, what convention is the lodge hosting? All canon couples, plus Mark! : This time, it seems that I've actually updated for the first time in months!
1. The Circus Act Convention

NoV: I couldn't resist writing another. (smile) Oh, and another little tidbit: I just absolutely freakin love this time of year!! All cold and snuggly….ahhh…..

--

Quote of the day:

"Never give advice in a crowd."

-Arab proverb

--

"So, what's the weirdest thing a person has ever said to you on the street?"

"Well….once this homeless guy said he was gonna shank me if I didn't step off his territory."

"An old woman once asked me how to get to the Penguin Room."

"I had a guy tell me that I should invest in garbage stock since it's always going up."

"Someone once told me that I looked like the reincarnated Buddha."

Being in stand-still traffic for three hours straight made for interesting conversation. The worst part of it was that they were only ten miles away from the ski resort that was their destination when they got into the horrific traffic. Nothing but honking cars for miles to come! Once again, Roger was behind the wheel with Mimi as his co-pilot. Maureen and Joanne sat in the middle seat, Mark, Angel and Collins in the back. They were, once again, going across the country to a remote location so that Angel could see Margo Fletcher's "oh-so-impressive" silk hat lecture. The gang was beginning to get cabin fever before ever getting to the actual cabin.

Maureen started giggling all of a sudden. She kept on giggling and couldn't seem to stop. Her laughter seemed to be contagious as Mimi started giggling up in the front seat as well. Then Angel started up in the back. This went on for a few minutes before Roger yelled, "What the hell is so funny?"

Maureen stopped her laughter long enough to answer, "Mark doesn't look like the Buddha!"

Everyone laughed at that.

Then they were silent. Roger turned on the radio to battle the boredom they all felt. A few minutes passed before Angel rolled down the window on her side. There was a tree branch hanging low near the window, so she reached out and grabbed a twig from it. From her position in the back of the van, she had the perfect opportunity to mess with the people sitting in front of her.

Collins watched in amusement as Angel slowly reached forward with the twig and tickled Joanne's ear. Joanne twitched and swatted at her ear, but said nothing. Angel covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the laughter. Then, once she had gotten herself under control, reached out to Joanne's other ear with the twig. Collins' smile grew as the twig lightly touched Joanne's ear and she shook her head roughly and scratched the side of her face. Then, Angel went for Maureen's ear. She stuck the twig through Maureen's thick hair and to her ear. Before Angel could pull the twig back, however, Maureen grabbed it on an impulse. Joanne looked over at the commotion, and realizing what had happened, she rolled her eyes. Angel, Collins and Maureen all had a good laugh.

--

Half an hour later….

"We've got cabin fever, and we're all going MAD!" everyone in the back sang.

"Shut up!" Roger yelled. "We're _here_. Finally…."

It was true. Roger at last pulled the plum van into the parking lot of the beautiful ski resort. There was a huge cabin hotel, a colossal snowy mountain for skiing, a ski lift going up to the top, and hundreds of….interesting-looking people milling about. All those in the van were absolutely ecstatic to get out and into the fresh mountain air. It was a crisp, clean feeling and a cool, chilly day, perfect for snuggling.

"Let's go check in, shall we?" Roger suggested.

--

After waiting in line at the front desk for over twenty minutes, they finally got up to the front. The hotel manager looked extremely exhausted, but greeted them with a smile, none the less. "Hello, and welcome to Shadow Mountain Inn. Do you have a reservation?"

"Yeah, it's under 'Margo-Fletcher-Is-So-Cool,'" Roger said quietly, rolling his eyes at Angel, who grinned widely.

The man raised an eyebrow, looking them up. "Okay, I have you right here. One deluxe suite."

"Yep," Roger replied. "So, what's with all the people?"

The manager grinned. "We have the pleasure of hosting the Annual Circus Act Convention," he said, excitedly.

Roger's eyes widened. "Say what?"

"Do you have enough rooms?" Joanne wondered, looking around at all the people.

"Well, actually most of them are staying in campers, tents, buses, you know," he said. More quietly, he said, "Circus folk." He shrugged, then called a bellhop. "There will be several performances this weekend. A list of show times is on the bulletin board in the lobby. I hope you enjoy your stay, everyone!"

Maureen had already run off with Angel to check out what performances they could see. Roger nodded at the bellhop. "I'm gonna bring the van around, okay?"

Roger and Mimi went back outside and got into the van. Roger shifted into drive and pulled up to the loading zone in front of the hotel. It was already packed with cars and only a tiny space was left to be parallel-parked in. Roger was having some difficulty maneuvering the large vehicle into the spot. He sighed. "Mimi, I'm gonna get out and let you park it, okay?" he said. "I'll wave you in."

"All right," Mimi agreed, as he got out and she hopped over into the driver's seat.

Roger stood between the plum van and a grey one parked behind it. He waved his arms slowly to inform Mimi that she could back up slowly. She did back up slowly at first, but then for some reason punched the gas, barreling the huge vehicle into Roger, who was thrown up onto the hood of the grey van.

"Oh, god!" Mimi cried, jumping out of the plum van and running up to Roger. "Are you okay, baby?" She touched his leg and he twitched.

Roger slowly slid off the van and barely stood on his own feet. He felt like he had a broken rib. "Ahhh…." he seethed in pain. "Okay, I just want to know why you hit me," he said simply.

Mimi grimaced, shyly. "Um….I thought I saw a bee," she answered.

Roger stared in disbelief. "You ran over me with the van because you _thought_ you saw a bee?" he demanded. Mimi shrugged. "Bees don't even live up in the mountains, Mimi! They freeze, Mimi. They get frozen in the winter…"

"It looked like a bee, okay?" Mimi yelled. "It was just a dust bunny, though."

--

Meanwhile, back in the lobby, the others of the group were watching a man who was showing off his trained tiger's tricks. "Bobo is completely harmless!" the trainer bragged, petting the animal around its jowls.

"Its name is Bobo?" Maureen asked with a slight laugh.

"Don't forget," Mark said, "you named a lobster Jeff."

Maureen stuck out her tongue at that. "Can I pet him?" she wondered.

"Of course!" the trainer exclaimed. "Bobo loves the beautiful girls, don't you Bobo?"

Maureen bravely went up to pet the tiger, which leaned into her hand affectionately. "Aw, what a cutie!" Maureen cried, rubbing its head.

Angel went over to pet him as well. "Ooh, it's just a big old kitty," she cooed.

Mark turned his camera on to capture the sweet display. "Does he come to you when you call him?" he wondered.

Joanne said jokingly, "Here, kitty kitty."

The trainer gasped and held tight to the leash but still the tiger managed to escape him and pounced on Joanne, knocking her to the ground. "Oh my god," Joanne squeaked from under the tiger. It licked her face.

The other four yelped in surprise, clearly not expecting Joanne to be jumped by a tiger. The trainer frantically ran over and tried to pull the big cat off of her. "Down, Bobo, get off the lady!" He gave a meek smile to Mark. "To answer your question, yes he comes when you call him."

Mark continued to film as the tiger was slowly tugged away from crushing Joanne. "Wow, I could send that to 'When Animals Attack'-and lick you," he said.

Maureen helped Joanne to her feet, dusting her off. "Are you okay, Pookit?"

Joanne gave her a look. "Sure, Maureen, I'm just fine," she said sarcastically.

"I'm so sorry!" the tiger's trainer exclaimed. "That's never happened before…."

Joanne scoffed. "That's what they _all _say…."

Mimi came running up and announced, "I'm gonna have to take Roger to the hospital. I hit him with the van….."

"What?" Collins asked.

"Yeah, it wasn't my fault!" Mimi insisted.

"I want to go too," Joanne moaned, feeling big bruises from the tiger's pounce and wondering if anything internal might be injured.

Maureen looked at Mimi and explained, "A tiger jumped on her."

"What?" Mimi said.

"I'll explain on the way," Maureen replied, helping Joanne toward the door.

"Okay," Mimi said. "I left Roger in the van." She turned back to Collins, Angel and Mark and tossed the hotel key to Collins. "Here, we'll be back as soon as we can."

Mark turned off his camera. "Why is it that everywhere we go we get beaten up and embarrassed horribly?" he wondered spookily.

--

NoV: A shortish chapter one, but more will come, you can be assured! (Poor Roger and Joanne!) Oh, and my friend's mom once got pounced on by a cougar at an exhibition, so it's not as far-fetched as you might think.

Next time (!): Mimi falls, Angel is exposed, Mark has an….encounter, and Maureen is set on fire.


	2. Bigfoot and Chocolate Periods

NoV: Okay, who else heard Weird Al's song "White and Nerdy" and thought of Mark? I think it hit me on the line "I'm whiter than sour cream." Yep, that would be Mark. .

--

Quote of the day:

"Oh would somebody just stab someone already?"

-Nina, Just Shoot Me

--

Angel was wearing a floor-length white dress. Normally this would not be worth mentioning, but for all intents and purposes, it was that day. She, Collins and Mark were toting the luggage up to the room. The bellhop had gotten misplaced sometime between Roger getting hit by the car and Joanne getting attacked by the tiger. The line at the front desk was still quite long, so they figured they could carry the bags themselves. After all, it was only one flight of stairs. This hotel was made up to look like a log cabin, only much larger, obviously. The walls were wooden and so was the winding staircase that led up to the second floor. It was very crowded on the staircase with all the people moving large boxes and crates and luggage around, so every so often the three of them had to move to the side to let people by.

At one point, they moved to the side to let two women carrying a small aquarium of fish go by. When Angel squished up beside the handrail, her dress got snagged on a protruding nail, but she didn't notice as she was too busy looking at the shiny, tropical fish.

"When we get back to the apartment," she said to Collins, "we should get a goldfish."

"Now, Angel," Collins said, "remember what I told you when you wanted the turtle?"

"Yes, feed it, play with it," Angel replied. "I'm not a child." They began walking back up the stairs, little knowing that Angel's homemade dress was snagged and getting stretched beyond its limits.. "When we get our goldfish, we'll name him…." There was an abnormally long pause.

"I'm sure Maureen could think of a name for it," Mark said. "She'll probably name it Stump or Luke or something…."

"Oh….my…..god," Angel said softly behind Collins and Mark.

They turned around to look at Angel who was standing there still holding the luggage now wearing only a pair of frilly underwear, her dress hanging on a nail a few stairs down. Collins' eyes widened in shock and Mark politely turned back around. It wouldn't have bothered Angel so much, except the stairs were crawling with people who were rubbernecking as they passed her by.

Collins shook his head and took a deep breath. "Damn…..Angel, you look so sexy…..that luggage….you're like a really freaky flight attendant.'

Angel gave him a wide-eyed look. "Oh, okay 'Captain,'" she barked. "Why don't we just join the mile high club right here on the stairs in front of all these people!" He didn't respond, so she said, "Collins, help me!"

"Baby, you're holding your suitcase," Collins reminded her.

"Oh yeah," Angel said feeling foolish. She opened her bag and got her bathrobe. After putting it on and closing her suitcase back up, she casually said, "Let's go."

--

Some hours later the others of the group arrived back at the lodge. As soon as they walked into the room, Mimi wondered, "Angel, why did we find your dress on the stairs?"

Angel took it from her and surveyed the damage. "I had a slight problem," she answered. "So, what did the emergency room tell you?"

"That Roger's a big baby and Joanne's a bigger one," Maureen answered.

"Hey!" Joanne protested. "Roger's the bigger baby! A tiger jumped on _me_. He just got hit by a car."

Roger looked in amazement at that comment. "Okay, first of all that was a _trained_ tiger. Second, I had a mild case of shock and my rib felt broken."

"Basically we wasted a whole lot of gas," Mimi said in summation. "So, where's my suitcase?"

"It's on the shelf," Collins told her. He reclined backwards into his lounge chair.

Mimi looked up to her red suitcase on the top shelf of the cabinet. "Why'd you put mine on the high shelf?" she whined. Collins shrugged and they all watched Mimi as she stood on a chair trying to get to her suitcase. She pulled her heavy suitcase off the shelf, but since it held substantial weight in comparison to her own weight, she lost her balance and felt into the garbage can.

"Ow…." Mimi murmured, folded up in the garbage can like a puppet.

"Are you okay?" Roger asked, helping her out, careful of his broken-feeling rib.

"Eww," Mimi cried, looking at the wet trash she had been sitting in. "You guys have only been here a few hours. Why is all this shit in the garbage already?"

"Angel was having her chocolate period," Collins said.

"What does that involve?" Joanne wondered.

"You don't wanna know," Mark informed her, sitting up on the bed.

"No, I do," Mimi insisted. "I was sitting in it, I have a right to know."

"She went through her purse, looking for chocolate," Collins explained. "She cleaned it out in the process. Threw away all the tissue and receipts and old make-up and whatnot."

"But why was it wet?" Mimi asked.

"We had a water balloon fight too," Angel replied.

"Hey, by the way," Maureen interjected before Mimi could ask another question, "they're having a drag queen contest tomorrow night."

Angel gasped and grew the biggest smile imaginable. "Really??" she cried. "How exciting! I'm so gonna win! All you guys should enter too so I can beat even more people! Oh….not that you're not pretty too…."

"Don't worry, I think we'll leave that to you," Roger promised.

"Ditto," Mark said.

Collins just gave a look that assured them all that he wasn't planning to enter such a thing.

Angel started blabbing about outfits and everyone mostly tuned her out, like when she talked about Margo Fletcher. They were sure she'd start that up soon too. Angel pranced around the room and then stopped below the TV, which was hanging from high up on the wall. "Oh, it will be so fun!" she yapped, then jumped up in excitement and banged her head on the TV. "Oh…." she moaned, falling to her knees.

"Well, honey," Collins said getting up and going over to help her up.

"I hit my head on TV," she said, as she was pulled over to the sofa.

"Yeah, I saw that," Collins told her. "Why have you been so stressy lately? You're acting like any second a big alien's gonna explode out of you."

"I'm sorry," Angel said quietly. "I'm a little edgy…..I can't handle much more Margo anticipation and disappointment. Maybe winning the drag queen contest will put me back in a good state of mind."

"Let's hope so," Collins said seriously.

--

Mark left to go film a little of the scenery and the people enjoying the day. The others were tired from the trip and just wanted to relax for a few hours.

Mark set up a little spot near the wooded area to film the skiers coming off the slope. He dusted the snow off a log and sat on it, getting ready to film. He filmed a few of the skiers, but diverted his attention to the snowboarders for a while. They had much more spectacular screw-ups.

A few minutes later, Mark turned around when he heard a sound in the woods. It was a soft rustling of leaves and sticks. He didn't see anything so he went back to filming. Moments after that, Mark heard a groan that sounded a little like a gorilla. He felt warm breath on his neck. He looked behind him quickly and fell off the log when he looked up into the face of a huge, shadowy beast. The scared filmmaker screamed in terror when the giant creature grunted and stood up to its full eight-foot height.

"SHIT!" Mark yelled. He jumped to his feet and ran off back to the hotel. The thing was right behind him. "Shit, shit, shit!" he cried. He ran and ran until he was out of the woods, so to speak, and back at the bottom of the ski slope. Panting, he looked over his shoulder to see that he was no longer being followed. "Oh my god….." he whispered.

--

"So, other than the drag show, the magic show and the snowman building contest, what other events do we want to see?" Maureen asked. She was sitting with Joanne on the couch reading from the list of events for the weekend.

"Is there a snow-sculpting contest?" Collins wondered. He was sitting on one of the beds, with Angel in his lap. "Because if there is, we've gotta keep Mark away from it." He grinned at Roger.

"Yeah," Roger agreed, "God forbid someone should be carving anything male." Mimi sat with him on the other bed.

Mark burst through the door at that moment, panting and huffing.

"Wow, do you have radar for when we're talking about you?" Mimi asked.

"No," Mark answered. "Wait, what?"

"What's wrong with you?" Roger asked. "You're all red."

"I think," he said, "I just saw bigfoot."

Everyone burst out laughing. "No, really!" Mark yelled as they all could barely control themselves.

"Mark, you're gone for twenty minutes and you expect us to believe that you saw bigfoot in that amount of time?" Maureen said.

"But, I did!" Mark insisted. "It was in the woods. It was big and furry and smelly!"

"Sounds like Maureen's house shoes," Joanne commented. Maureen hit her on the arm. "Hey!" Joanne cried, rubbing said arm.

"I'll PROVE it to you guys!" Mark declared, getting everyone's attention back to him. "Because I got it all on film," he said, full of himself. "Oh my god I left my camera!!!!"

The others all stopped what they were doing. Mark had never lost his camera before. Clearly, this was a serious matter.

"Maybe it was a moose," Angel suggested. "I think those can get pretty big."

"It wasn't a moose," Mark assured her. "It was a yeti, and it tried to eat me," he said in complete seriousness. This of course made them all laugh at him again. "You'll see!" Mark promised, heading back out the door. "When I show you the proof, you will see."

--

An hour later, everyone but Mark went to see Sir Bamaha's Magic Spectacular in the hotel's mini-theater. Most of the tricks were mildly lame, but Angel, Mimi and Maureen still sat there giggling and marveling at them.

"I will now need a volunteer!" Sir Bamaha announced about halfway through the show. He stood on the stage wearing a very cheap-looking cape and a faded black top hat. "Someone of true courage—"

"OH MY GOD PICK ME!!" Maureen squealed, jumping out of her seat.

"—someone who has always believed in true magic—"

"I believe!" Maureen shouted. She was now standing in her chair.

"—someone who is truly a magician at heart—"

"That's me!" Maureen screamed.

"FINE," Sir Bamaha said, exasperated. "Come on, kid."

"Yay!" Maureen cried. She ran up on stage, standing beside the magician.

"For this trick, I will douse my lovely volunteer with gasoline," he announced, splashing her with the liquid.

"What?" Maureen demanded. "Hey!" She was splashed with the strong-smelling substance. "These are my favorite clothes!"

Ignoring her, Sir Bamaha said, "Then I shall ask her to hold this lit match." He held out a match and ignited it on its matchbox.

"I'm not holding that, are you crazy??" Maureen yelled, backing away from him.

He winked at her, as if to say it was just a parlor trick. Maureen trustingly reached out and took the match. "Now, I will say the magic words—"

"OH MY GOD! I'M ON FIRE! I'M ON FIRE!!!" she screamed loudly. The match had set fire to a trail of gasoline on her arm. "HELP ME YOU BASTARD!!"

Sir Bamaha was dumbfounded that the trick had gone awry. "I—I—is there a doctor in the house!"

"Maureen, stop, drop and roll!" Joanne instructed. She got out of her seat and ran down the aisle so she could assist her girlfriend.

Maureen dropped to the floor with a shriek of pain as she rolled, trying to douse the flames covering her body. Joanne started beating her with her jacket, in an attempt to further the putting out of the fire.

By the end of it, all the bohemians except Mark had crowded the stage, wondering what would become of Maureen. She sat up, facing the audience, her hair charred and her skin and clothes blackened. She had a wild look in her eyes when she said, "Fuck."

--

NoV: Sorry about late updating. RAWR! I've been a little sickly this week and, certainly….oh, I'm boring you. Anyway, I had to update today because I was so excited because I'm going to see RENT tonight! How fun! I've been waiting for three weeks and it's finally come to my hometown! YAI!

Next time (!): Joanne gets stuck in the elevator, Maureen overdoses, Collins falls into a box, Mimi loses some hair, Roger gets stuck.


	3. Stuck

NoV: Oh, the busyness of your NoV!!!!! (I don't own Nyquil.)

--

Quote of the day:

Jack: You're a delightful little thing!

Finch: Oh, really? So's the devil!

-Just Shoot Me

--

Maureen didn't want to go to the hospital, take a bath, or change out of her clothes, though everyone insisted she do all these things. She just wanted to go to bed. Joanne helped her get back up to the room via the elevator. Of course when Angel found out that such an elevator existed, she began ranting about how her naked shame could have been avoided.

"Here," Joanne said softly, pulling back the covers on hers and Maureen's bed. "Lie down, honeybee."

The word honeybee brought back bad memories to Roger. As Maureen climbed into the bed, he said, "It's getting pretty dark out. I guess I'll go find Mark."

"I'll come with you," Collins offered. After grabbing their coats, he and Roger gave a farewell kiss to their respective partners and left the room. They idly joked about how Mark had probably seen a gopher and exaggerated about it being bigfoot, as they went downstairs.

Down in the lobby, an older man in a bright blue suit was handing out buttons and fliers. "Vote for Wailer!" he cried every few seconds. When Roger and Collins walked by him, he said, "You boys want a button?" Without waiting for their response, he continued, "Gemini Wailer was born in this very cabin fifty-four years ago. Now after many years of faithful service as a district court judge, he's running for mayor. He believes in the ethics of hard work and—"

"Look, I'm sorry," Roger said interrupting him. "But we're looking for our crazy friend. Maybe some other time you can tell us the life story of your politician."

"And what kind of a name is Gemini?" Collins added as he and Roger walked in the other direction.

The promoter narrowed his eyes and made a mental image of the two men who had disrespected his campaign.

--

Upstairs, while Joanne, Angel and Mimi watched TV, Maureen was tossing and turning unable to sleep. Every position she tried to get into was painful. Worst of all, she wasn't tired. Amazingly after being set on fire on stage by an amateur magician, she was still wide awake.

Finally in frustration after unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep for twenty minutes, Maureen slowly rose from the bed, careful not to aggravate her burns.

The sounds of her girlfriend stirring alerted Joanne, who got up from the couch and went immediately to her. "What's the matter, Maureen?" she asked. "If you need something, let me get it."

"I need….sleeping pills," Maureen told her.

"I have some Nyquil," Mimi offered, overhearing them. "It always makes me drowsy." She looked through her backpack and found the bottle of cold medicine.

Maureen happily took it from her and unscrewed the top. Joanne watched in alarm as Maureen downed about half the bottle. "Maureen!" she cried. "You're not supposed to drink that much. I think you're only supposed to take one or two teaspoons." She tried taking the bottle away from her.

Maureen pulled back and took another gulp. "I was set on fire today," she said pointedly. "I think I deserve more than the recommended dosage of sleep medication." Feeling woozy, she went back over to the bed and laid down. Within minutes, the others heard her snoring.

--

With a flashlight, Collins and Roger searched the area around the lodge for signs of Mark. It was somewhat difficult since it was dark and there were several hundred sets of footprints in the snow going in all directions. Every now and then they would call "Mark!" but didn't receive an answer.

"Maybe he's skiing," Collins suggested after a while.

"I doubt it," Roger replied, shining the light toward a group of trees. They were now walking toward the edge of the forest. "Mark can't ski during the day. He wouldn't be caught dead on the slopes at night…..unless….." Roger put the flashlight under his chin to produce a spooky effect. "Unless you think he's dead….."

"Yeah," Collins laughed. "Maybe he—" Collins paused when he stumbled over a piece of clothing in the snow. Confused, he turned around to pick up the object. Collins screamed an abnormally girly scream for a man of his stature. It was Mark's scarf.

Roger shone the flashlight on Collins to see what the commotion was. When he too saw that it was Mark's scarf he screamed a more manly scream. "Mark IS dead!" Roger yelped.

"Oh my god!" Collins shrieked. "Where's the body??"

Roger was shining the light in all directions, panicking. "Uh—uh—maybe the killer hid the body!!"

"THE KILLER!!" Collins screamed. "WHAT IF HE'S STILL HERE WAITING FOR US SO WE CAN BE VICTIMS TOO OH MY GOD HE'S GONNA KILL US WE'RE GONNA BE MURDERED JUST LIKE MARK!" he yelled all in one breath. By this point, he and Roger were jumping all over each other like two frightened women.

"Collins, Roger, chill," said a voice from above.

"That—" Roger said.

"—sounded like—" Collins added.

"Mark?" they both said.

Collins looked around suspiciously. "It's the ghost of Mark," he said hauntingly. "He's upset that we disturbed his scarf…."

"Up here," Mark said, half annoyed and half embarrassed.

Collins and Roger craned their necks to look straight up into a tree where Mark was sitting, straddling a tree branch. "What the hell are you doing up there, Mark?" Roger demanded. He was pretty upset that he had been out in the dark and the cold for twenty minutes looking for him. "You've got me and Collins out in the snow, freezing to death. The girls are sick with worry….."

"Really?" Mark asked.

"No," Collins replied.

Mark glared at them. "I'm stuck, okay? I climbed up here to see if I could see….you know, Bigfoot….but now I can't get down."

"You got up there," Roger reminded him, rolling his eyes. "You can get down."

"Maybe you guys could go get a net….." Mark said, shyly.

"Just jump," Collins suggested. "It's two feet of snow down here, you won't get hurt."

"Are you crazy?" Mark yelled. "I'm twenty feet up! I'll break my neck!"

"I'm going to count to three," Roger said, "and then I'm gonna throw this flashlight at you and knock you down."

"You can't be serious—" Mark scoffed.

"One."

"Collins, stop him!" Mark yelled.

"Two."

"Roger, don't! What if you hit me in the eye!"

"Two and a half—"

"Fine, fine!" Mark cried. "I'm coming down…."

"Three!" Roger said, chucking the flashlight into the air. It hit something, a tree branch above Mark, which startled the boy enough that he lost his balance and fell to the ground. Collins and Roger jumped back so he wouldn't land on them.

After the proverbial dust cleared, they walked back over to Mark, who was lying face-first in the snow, not moving. They pulled him up by his arms and he stood, disbelievingly shaking his head. The lenses on his glasses were comically covered in snow, shielding his very angry eyes. "I will kill you two someday," he said.

--

With Maureen contently snoozing, Joanne excused herself to go to the front desk to ask about a wake up call. She had set up skiing lessons for nine am and had left her alarm clock at home. She left the room and stepped quickly into the elevator. A thin, gangly man was standing solemnly in the corner. Joanne flashed a smile at him and pressed the ground floor button.

A few moments after the door closed, the man said, "So, how do you feel about the oil crisis?"

Joanne glanced back at him. "Um…..excuse me?" she said.

"You know. The oil crisis," he repeated. He looked up and she saw dark circles under his eyes. "What do you think is the cause that it's such a growing problem in this country?"

"Um….I don't know," Joanne said, wishing the elevator would hurry up.

Without another word, the guy gracefully kicked the electronic control board beside the door of the elevator. Joanne stared, mouth agape as the metal casing fell off, revealing the damaged wires beneath. "Well," the man said, "we're not leaving until you tell me what you think."

--

Collins, Mark and Roger walked into the hotel lobby, greatly appreciating the heat the building gave off. "Let's take the elevator," Roger said. "I don't want to run into that Vote for Whatever guy again."

"Who?" Mark wondered.

As Mark was told the story of the annoying campaigner, they walked around to the elevator, only to find that a couple of technicians and the hotel manager were standing in front of the door, looking frustrated.

"What's going on?" Collins asked.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen," the manager said, "but you'll have to take the stairs. The elevator's stuck between floors."

Shrugging, they walked back around to the stairs. Roger rolled his eyes, hearing "Vote for Wailer!" in the distance. So distracted by their annoyance were Roger and Collins that they failed to notice the wet floor sign. The campaigner grew quiet and narrowed his eyes when he saw them approaching. He turned his back on them and started campaigning the other way.

Collins wanted to be funny and make faces behind the man's back, but when he ran over to sneak up behind him, he slid across the slippery floor and fell right into the box of campaign buttons, some of which were unhooked. Immediately in a lot of pain from getting stuck with so many pins, Collins jumped up and cried out. He started running around wailing, covered in Vote for Wailer buttons. It was quite fitting actually.

Roger and Mark tried to calm him so they could help him unprick himself while the campaign man stood and laughed at their charades.

--

Mimi and Angel were watching _Jeopardy! _when Mimi asked, "Can I borrow your hairbrush?"

"Yes," Angel said. She went through her purse to get the brush and handed it to Mimi. Mimi began to use the purple hairbrush to brush through her long, tangly hair. On one particularly stubborn tangle, Mimi tugged at the brush to try and pull it through. Angel watched in discomfort as Mimi ripped the brush handle apart, leaving the bristles in her hair. "Mimi!" Angel cried. "You broke the brush!"

"It's my tangles!" Mimi yelled frustrated. She threw the handle across the room and screamed a very irritated scream. "Help me!" she demanded. Angel stood up and went behind Mimi. With one hand tightly around the clump of Mimi's hair and the other on the bristles, Angel pulled at the mess with all her might. "OW! OW!" Mimi screamed.

Finally, with one powerful tug, Angel pulled the bristles and a sizeable amount of Mimi's hair out. Angel stared at the bundle of curly, tangled hair in her hand and threw it behind the couch when Mimi turned around to thank her.

Mimi gave Angel a hug, thankful to be out of such a nightmare. "Thanks, Angel," she said. Pulling back, she wondered, "Why do you look so guilty?"

Angel didn't have to answer as a very sore Collins and Mark returned with Roger. "Hey, Mark! Glad they found you!" Angel cried, looking away from Mimi.

Mark, embarrassed, said, "Yeah, well….I wasn't lost or anything….I was just…."

"He was stuck in a tree," Roger finished bluntly. He went to sit with Mimi on the couch and slid his arm around her thin shoulder.

Collins shamefully went to sit by Angel. "Hey, babe…." he said, solemnly.

"What's wrong, Col—"Angel stopped herself and asked, "Why are you bleeding? Are you okay?"

"I fell into a box of campaign buttons," Collins replied quietly.

"Aw….I'm sorry," Angel said, cuddling him. "Let's go get some band-aids and clean you up, okay?" Collins followed her into the bathroom.

"Hey, Mimi," Roger said, feeling the back of her head. "What happened to your hair? You don't have as much as you did an hour ago."

"ANGEL!!!" Mimi screamed.

--

NoV: Ah, it took me awhile to get this updated, sorry! But, I've started working again in the pleasant delightful world of retail. -.-0 But next week is Thanksgiving and I'll have some time off from school, so I'll get to update some more!

PS: Roger getting stuck will have to wait til next time, I was at too good of a stopping point to put it with this one.

Next time (!): Roger gets stuck, Mimi falls down, Maureen feels the effects of OD-ing on Nyquil, Joanne beats on something, and the drag contest is held.


	4. The Couch

NoV: Lalala! I am enjoying the holiday snacks, my peoples!!!

Oh, and the insane part about Angel's leg…..that's inspired by me when I watched Titanic and that guy jumped off and hit the propeller….that was funny.

--

Quote of the day:

NoV: (eating a very salty pretzel at the mall) Ugh! This is too salty! We should take it back and tell them it's too salty.

Alley: But they'd be like 'It's a pretzel!'

--

"So, where's Joanne?" Mark asked, noticing that she was the only one absent from the room.

"She went to ask the front desk about a wake up call," Mimi replied. "But that was a long time ago….should we go find her?"

"Well, don't look at me!" Roger said defensively. "I had to go find Mark and knock him out of the tree."

"A gesture for which I am eternally grateful," Mark muttered.

"There are a thousand things to do in this place," Collins added, as he and Angel emerged from the bathroom. He was now band-aided. "She's probably having fun at a show or something….."

--

"—I know it sounds clichéd and overstated, but overall I think that our involvement with the Arabian nations during the world wars in essence has led to the oil crises that we are experiencing. Even now we are still heavily occupying those nations that we greatly depend on for our oil. And basically that's why I think we are experiencing a national oil crisis," Joanne said. She and Tim, his name was, were sitting on the floor of the elevator discussing the topic at hand. Tim actually turned out to be a pretty decent albeit creepy guy.

"Hmmm…." he mused. "That's the best answer I've gotten all day."

"Really?" Joanne wondered. "…..how many people have you trapped in this elevator today?"

"Just you," he replied.

"Why me?" Joanne asked, feeling uncomfortable once again.

"Because I want your SOUL!!" Tim yelled, and the darkness enveloped Joanne.

--

"Miss! Miss! Can you hear me?" a nasally voice was asking.

Joanne's eyes opened to see the hotel manager and a couple of engineer-types hovering over her. She immediately felt her throbbing head and sore back. She slowly sat up, finding herself on the floor next to the elevator. "Did he get my soul?" she asked immediately.

"What?" the manager asked, squinting at her.

"Never mind," Joanne said, deciding that experience wasn't real. "What happened?"

"You fell down the elevator shaft," one of the other men said. "Didn't you see the CAUTION signs?"

Joanne rolled her eyes and sarcastically said, "Yeah, but I decided I wanted to take a thirty-foot plummet anyway."

"It was actually more like ten feet," the manager interceded. He shrugged, "For liability reasons. Can I call you an ambulance Miss—"

"Joanne," she said, "and no. I feel fine." She rose to her feet, ignoring his outstretched hand. Joanne had had enough emergency room experiences for one lifetime, so she decided to take a couple of aspirin and sleep it off.

She arrived back at the hotel room just as Mark was setting up his projector with his camera to show everyone his bigfoot proof. Joanne looked at her watch and then to all the people in the room. "Okay, I was missing for forty-five minutes when I should have been gone for maybe ten," she said. "So, why didn't you guys come looking for me?"

"Hey, I was stuck up in a tree for four hours before anyone came looking for me," Mark protested. "What _were_ you doing?"

"I fell down the elevator shaft," Joanne said quietly.

"No wonder they wouldn't let us get on the elevator," Collins mused like it wasn't a big deal. He, Angel, Roger and Mimi were all squished on the couch, having been talked into watching Mark's crazy bigfoot footage.

"Okay, okay," Mark said. "Go sit down. It's ready." Joanne rolled her eyes and sat down on the bed next to Maureen, who was still out cold. She lovingly stroked Maureen's hair.

Mark stood in front of them all, before turning the film on. "You all laughed at me," he said. "For a very long time. Like I was just another crazy bigfoot fanatic! But now you'll see the proof and you will bow down and respect me like you should have all along. You'll see the error of your way. You will rue the day—"

"Just show us the damn movie!" Collins snapped, growing restless.

"Fine, but I just want to say that I haven't seen this before, so I haven't gotten a chance to edit—"

"MARK!" yelled everyone except Joanne who shushed them, mindful of Maureen's sleeping needs.

Without further ado, Mark turned on the film and went to sit on the floor by the couch so he could watch as well. The projection on the wall at first showed snowboarders flying down the hill, blazing past the trees. Then, suddenly, the shot jerked backwards, shaking but capturing nothing. A moment later, it went back to focusing on the skiers and snowboarders. A few minutes after that, it wrenched back toward the forest again catching a glimpse of something brown, then falling to Mark's lap. All that could be seen for twenty seconds was a terrified shaking Mark from the waist down.

Roger was getting weak and tearful. "Oh my god!" he cried, bursting into fits of laughter. "Did you wet your pants?? No, wait, it's just a shadow….oh, man! Wouldn't it be great if you did though and we got it on film?"

Mark, embarrassed beyond belief, jumped up and ran over to turn the movie off.

The others were laughing hysterically by this point as well. "No, don't turn it off!" Mimi wailed, unable to control her own laughter. "Maybe bigfoot will walk into the shot and we'll see him from the ankles down!" This made them all roll with laughter some more.

Mark's face was as red as a tomato when he turned off the projector. "See if I ever show you guys anything ever again," he said. "You're all immature."

"Hey, Markie," Angel said, once she had herself under control. "Do you have the beach film with you?"

"Yeah, I think so," Mark replied, looking through his camera bag. Finding the desired footage he asked, "Do you want to watch it?"

So they watched the beach film and relived _those_ memories. Mostly they were memories of good times, but Joanne threatened to smash the camera while everyone giggled at the part where the seagulls attacked her. Then came the part where Mark had captured the parasailing and seadoo accident that Mimi and Angel had. The two of them sat on the couch, certain that they too would be embarrassed beyond belief when the film revealed their less than flattering crash into the buoy. The group watched as the seadoo collided with the buoy, flinging Angel and Mimi in two directions.

"Oh my god! Did you see my leg?" Angel cried, pointing and staring with her eyes wide. "Rewind it, Mark, rewind it!"

Mark, confused, went over to the camera and rewound it a couple of frames.

When he pushed play and returned to the couch, Angel instructed everyone, "Okay, now watch my leg when we fly off the seadoo….." They did and then she cried, "That's too weird!"

Collins grimaced. "That was really…..unnatural," he commented.

"How…..how did that happen?" Mimi asked.

"I didn't think a person's leg could bend that way….without getting broken, I mean," Roger said.

"Rewind it again!" Angel pleaded. She made Mark rewind it several more times so she could enjoy laughing at her flexible leg. She then made him show it to her frame-by-frame, and afterwards everyone went to bed.

--

The next morning, Joanne was woken up by giggling beside her. She groggily rolled over to see that Maureen was the source of this insane sound. The girl's eyes were slightly open and she looked drugged….because she was. "Maureen?" she wondered, only getting an insane-sounding laugh in reply. Alerted to the dangers of the overdose, Joanne crawled over Maureen and stood by her side of the bed. "Mimi!" she cried, for Mimi was sleeping in the next bed with Roger.

"Hmm…." Mimi said, not moving.

"Get up!" Joanne pleaded. "There's something wrong with Maureen!"

Mimi sat up slowly and kneeled on the floor, resting her elbows beside Maureen. When she noticed that Maureen was giggling hysterically with demonically possessed-looking eyes, she came to full wakefulness. "Oh my god, why is she laughing like that?" Mimi asked, her eyes wide.

"She must have took too much of that Nyquil!" Joanne exclaimed. "I _told_ her—"

"Would you all shush?" Collins snapped from the bed on the other side of the room. He had Angel cocooned beside him in blankets and pillows and decided to sacrifice one of the smaller pillows to throw at the noisy girls.

"Maureen OD'd!" Joanne yelled at him. "I'll be as loud as I want!"

"OD?" Angel asked, the two simple letters jarring her fully awake. Collins missed the warmth that suddenly fled from him. Angel jumped beside Maureen on Joanne's empty side of the bed and felt the delirious girl's forehead. "She feels clammy," Angel reported.

"What does that tell you?" Joanne asked, worriedly.

"I don't know," Angel shrugged.

"Then why feel her forehead?" Joanne demanded.

"It's something that people do when someone is sick….should I take her pulse too?" she said as an afterthought.

Mimi sighed. "We need to call for an ambulance."

"It's just Nyquil, though right?" Mark said from the fold-out sofa-bed. The others looked at him in surprise, not realizing that he had been listening. Mark reached over to the night stand and grabbed his glasses. "It can't be too serious," he insisted.

Roger gave a huge groan as all the chatter forced him from his slumber. "What are we talking about at seven am?" he asked. He looked to see all of them clambering around Maureen and her giggly self. "Maureen overdosed on _Nyquil_?" he said. "The shenanigans never end…." He walked around to stand beside Maureen. "There's a very simple way to tell how far gone she is," he explained. He picked up Maureen's hand and held it up in the air so that her arm was stretched all the way out. When he let go, her hand hit her in the face with a resounding SMACK! "And that was it," he said, looking guiltily at the others. "She's gone."

--

A little later Maureen fell soundly asleep, so everyone decided to let her sleep her delirium away. They were all pretty hungry, so it was decided that they would draw straws to see who would stay and watch Maureen while the others went downstairs to the buffet. Roger sighed, sitting on Mark's abandoned couch-bed. He had drawn the short straw. He stared blankly at the TV, mildly interested in some music video, wishing it were him on TV rocking out.

Eventually he got bored, and since he still hadn't gotten a good night's sleep, he laid down on the sofa bed and fell asleep. Unfortunately, this was the point in time when Maureen woke up….in theory. Still heavily under the cough medicine's influence, Maureen got up shakily and walked all the way around the bed to Joanne's side. "Wake up, Pookie!" she said in a wispy, five-year-old's voice. She patted the spot where Joanne's head would have been if she were still asleep in the bed. "Oh, you're not there," Maureen commented, not upset, but just wanting to continue her conversation with herself. "La la la la la…." She mused. She walked over to the fold out couch Mark had slept on. Mark was no longer sleeping in it. But silly Mark for leaving it all messy and unfolded! "Markie!" Maureen giggled. "You left your bed in a pigsty!" The logic in her mind, although she distinctly saw another person sprawled out on the makeshift bed, told her it needed to be neatly folded up so it would be out of the way. Everyone would thank her for it later and maybe reward her with cookies and hot chocolate! Or brownies! So, even with her weakened strength, Maureen began to fold up the couch with Roger in it.

Roger didn't realize what was happening until it was all but too late! "Wait! NO! HELP!" Roger screamed, as he was smunched between the scratchy upholstery and the cushiony pillows. All the light of day left him and he was alone, smothered and squished.

--

Half an hour later, all the others returned to the hotel room. They found Maureen sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street, holding the remote toward the screen and drooling.

"Maureen!" Joanne cried. "You're awake, honey." She sat next to her on the couch, taking note of the drooling. "….are you okay?"

"Where's Roger?" Mimi wondered, looking around. "Maureen, where's Roger?"

Maureen giggled and said, "You'll never guess!"

"Roger?" Mimi called.

"EMM IMM HMMM!" said the couch, apparently.

"Oh my god, he's in the couch!" Collins exclaimed, with a slight smile growing on his face.

"Maureen, let's get off the couch," Joanne said, helping her to her feet.

"Okay, Janelle," Maureen said.

"Joanne," Joanne corrected.

"My name is Maureen, silly!" Maureen laughed.

Angel helped Mimi unfold the couch to reveal Roger with imprint marks all over his face and arms. He sat up and shook his head violently. Glaring at Maureen, he said, "She folded me up in the couch!"

"Really?" Mark said sarcastically, filming Roger's escape from the couch.

"I almost died!" Roger insisted, not wanting them to make fun of him. Unfortunately this only made them laugh even more.

--

NoV: Oh, man! I just can't seem to get all the stuff I need to into these chapters! I don't want to make them too long, so some of the stuff will have to wait til next time. Also, I probly won't be able to update until a while after Thanksgiving….sorry.

Next time(!): Mimi falls down, the drag contest is held, Joanne beats on something, Maureen has a fall.


	5. Dragalicious

NoV: You're all probably like 'Hey! I read this a long time ago, didn't I?' Yes you did and now after an eternity of no updates, I am updating!! WEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

--

Quote of the day:

"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."  
-Neitzsche

--

Maureen quickly (and randomly) went back to bed shortly after Roger stopped hyperventilating. Only an hour remained before the drag queen contest was to be held and everyone was in agreement that a) Maureen wasn't going and b) someone was staying to overdose-sit her.

Angel, since she was going to be _in_ the contest, didn't draw a straw. Roger, since he was fearful for his life, didn't either. The other four quickly drew the makeshift straws (which were actually toothbrushes, Mark's travel brush being the loser straw).

Angel indignantly protested when Collins was the one to draw the short brush. "No!" she whined. "I wanted for Collins to be there to share in my GLORY!"

Collins silently thanked God that he wasn't going to have to go to another one of "those things," but aloud he sympathized with Angel. "Aww, I'm sorry baby, but Mark'll get it all on video and we'll watch it together."

Angel sniffed in mock-disappointment. "Can we watch the funny parts twice?" she wondered.

"Three times," Collins promised giving her a kiss. "Good luck!" he exclaimed, smacking her behind.

"Don't need it!" Angel replied as she and Mimi picked up her extensive wardrobe and headed for the door.

"Well….' Joanne said, shifting uncomfortably as she watched Maureen sleeping. "Whatever you do, keep an eye on her especially if you get on the couch." She shot a "just joking" look at Roger who scrunched up his face and rolled his eyes.

Soon they were all gone, leaving Collins and Maureen alone in the room.

--

Backstage at the drag contest, Mimi was helping Angel zip up the back of her dress. "Suck it in, Angel, Jesus…..stop eating so much junk food," Mimi said, struggling with the zipper.

Angel had been sucking in her practically nonexistent belly for two minutes. "Are you sure the cloth isn't stuck in the zipper, Mimi?" she asked. "Because that would explain the situation in a way that doesn't poke fun at my _obesity_."

"Sorry," Mimi said gritting her teeth as she struggled with the dress, "but it's very frustrating." Finally it zipped up. "Ah! There you go! Now turn around." Angel did so and showed off the black and white striped mini-dress that she so elegantly pulled off. "No one else stands a chance against you," Mimi said positively. "Knock 'em dead!" She quickly ran out to find the others in the audience.

As soon as she sat down next to Roger, the house lights in the small theatre went out. Mark set up his camera just as a man with a microphone came across the stage and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the candidates for Drag Queen of the Year!"

No one cheered quite so loudly as the group of people sitting in the third row, which of course were our bohemian friends. The group of fifteen lavishly dressed queens paraded onto the stage, sashaying in confidence. After a short introduction to all the contestants, they all jittered backstage to prepare for the first portion of the contest-the swimsuit bit.

--

Maureen snored without mercy. Even with the volume all the way up on the TV, Collins still couldn't drown her out. Something about drinking a whole bottle of Nyquil made a person snore like a wildebeest. If only she had left some for Collins so he might too find the sweet release of a drug-induced slumber! Collins glanced over at the mini-bar that was seductively calling to him. Sure it was ten dollars for a single bottle of beer, but it was so convenient…..

--

Mimi squealed for Angel when she whirled around in her two piece suit on stage. Angel grinned and blew her a kiss before going behind the curtain. "Now we will have a short intermission," said the host, "and when we return we will have the evening wear portion of the show."

The bohemians got up to stretch a little before wandering over to the snackbar to get nachos. Joanne considered going upstairs to check on Maureen and Collins but decided against it, wanting to pig out on the nachos with everyone else.

--

Collins had run up the mini-bar tab to eighty dollars by this point. He giggled much like Maureen had when she first woke up that morning. On a whim he stumbled into the closet, thinking to himself that he needed a heavy jacket to go skiing in. But that's not what he found first…..

"Angel…..y'forgot yer dress, gurl…." he slurred. "Dun worry….a'll bring it to ya…"

--

Angel wore a stunning dress, floor-length and pink with sequins. She twirled showing off the fullness of the skirt, getting many cheers from the audience. A few more drag queens later, and the host came back onstage to announce the winners. "Would all our lovely contestants please come back onstage?" he asked. The fifteen contenders waltzed back onto the stage, still in their evening wear. "The winner will be chosen by the most applause given by the audience," he announced.

Mimi smiled at Roger and the others. There's no way Angel could lose with all the noise they were going to make.

Angel politely waited her turn while the other contestants were getting cheered for. She was fairly to immensely confident that she would win, hands down. She surveyed the audience, giving a wink at her friends when suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dark figure enter from the back of the theater….a dark figure that was wearing her red, slinky dress…..

Angel could not stop the look of horror, disbelief, and slight excitement that spread over her face as Collins, drunk as a lush, wearing her scanty red strapless dress came stumbling onstage. A hush came over the audience and the contestants as Collins strolled over to Angel and slurred, "Hey, baby! I found your dress!" Angel stood there, mouth agape, at a loss for words.

The host saved her the trouble by saying, "It seems we have a last minute contestant! Let's hear the audience's response to…." He paused briefly to ask the name of the lovely young man in the red dress. "Tom Collins!"

There was a moment's pause before everyone in the audience (sans the stupefied bohemians) rose to their feet giving Collins a standing ovation and a wild display of adoration.

"I think we have a winner!"

--

Angel sobbed into the couch, Mimi sitting beside her and rubbing her back comfortingly. Collins was passed out in the bed after being crowned and giving a rendition of "I will survive," on stage. Maureen was still fast asleep and Joanne was considering calling an ambulance. Mark and Roger sat around, not knowing what to do in this kind of situation.

"Collins isn't even a drag queen!" Angel cried. "But he did look pretty….." she mused. "I'm hideous! Don't look at me!"

Mimi tried to soothe Angel's multiple personalities by saying, "You are not hideous. Roger thinks you're pretty, don't you Roger?"

"Yes," Roger said. He knew better than to say anything else. Mark silently thanked God that he hadn't gotten roped into the conversation.

"Tell her she's pretty," Mimi instructed.

"You're pretty," Roger said, obediently.

"No, tell her something about her that's pretty."

"I like your bright green eye shadow. It's really stunning."

"No! Tell her about something that's attached to her body that's pretty!"

"I like your hair."

"….Roger, you're not helping. Go away."

But, Angel had already begun to giggle at the conversation. Mimi smiled, happy that her friend was no longer sobbing and being scary.

--

NoV: Yay! Another chapter!


	6. Ski Slope of Death!

NoV: Tis another chapter, lovelies!

--

Quote of the day:

"How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?

How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Can you even look me in the eye?"

-"Dear Mr. President," Pink

--

Collins awoke to a very painful headache. "OH god…." he groaned. "What did I do?" He buried himself further into the blankets to shield his eyes from the light. The horrid light that burned through his retinas and made him want to vomit.

"Collins?" wondered a feminine voice.

Collins groaned again.

"You've got a hangover don't you?" the person asked.

"Please kill me," Collins pleaded.

Maureen pulled the covers away from his head. "Come on, there's no time to lay around. We're on vacation. Everyone else went skiing. They left us a note."

"Auuunnghh…." Collins replied.

--

Eventually, Maureen convinced Collins to get out of bed. He filled her in on the sixteen hours she had been in an unconscious state from her burns and the Nyquil. After taking a nice bath will cool water, she had felt considerably better.

As soon as they were both in ten layers of clothing, Collins and Maureen went to meet their friends on the north slope. The whole way there Maureen boasted her superior skiing prowess while Collins tried to remember if he had ever been skiing in his life. They rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain and once there scoured the area for their friends. Frantic movement a couple of hundred feet away alerted them to the group trying to prepare to go down the mountain.

Mimi and Angel were feverishly waving Collins and Maureen over. "Hey Pooklet!" Maureen exclaimed, hugging Joanne who stood there amazed that she was finally out of the bed.

"Hey, Maureen! How're you feeling?" she wondered.

"I'm feeling….naughty," Maureen replied with the raise of an eyebrow. She pulled Joanne toward her seductively.

"Not now Maureen," Joanne protested. "We're both wearing fifty pounds of clothes….and….and, oh what the hell!" Hence beginning a thirty-second lip lock that gave the others a couple of ideas.

Angel snuggled with Collins. "How are you feeling?" she wondered, relishing the feeling of his strong arms around her waist.

"A little hungover," he admitted. "What did I do last night….or this morning…..or last week?"

Angel laughed. "You ran up the mini-bar bill to eighty-seven dollars single-handedly."

"Oh my god!" Collins cried. "That's embarrassing…."

Mimi stopped momentarily from liplocking with Roger to inform Collins, "You entered the drag contest." She gave Roger a quick peck on the lips and then added, "And you won."

Collins' jaw lowered considerably. "I what?"

Angel grimaced. "You were prettier than me."

Collins grunted. "I don't believe any of this. You're all just trying to get my goat because I drank too much and passed out."

"Mark got it all on film," Roger mentioned.

Collins blanched. "Are you serious?"

Angel giggled. "It was the highlight of _my_ evening," she said, not bringing up the three hours she had spent bawling over the ordeal.

Collins sighed. "I'm sorry baby. I didn't mean to beat you."

Angel smiled and said, "I have a room at home with a hundred drag queen trophies. No big deal." And thus the making out began again.

Mark broke up everyone's fun by saying, "The slopes are waiting, guys! It's time you finally proved to us that you are an 'expert,' Maureen."

"Just watch me!' Maureen exclaimed, and before anyone realized that she had put her skis on, she was shooting down the powdery mountain.

The others exchanged glances and started rushing to follow suit.

"Now Mark," Roger said sarcastically, "if you happen to see Bigfoot on the way down the mountain, make sure to get me his autograph."

"Ha-ha," Mark said, strapping on his skis. He shakily stood on them, wondering how in the world he was going to go down a slippery hill on those things. "We'll see who's laughing when I'm on the cover of _Yetis Unlimited_ and you're walking a step behind me everywhere I go, picking up stray $20 bills that fall in my wake."

Roger chuckled. "Yeah we'll see."

"Everyone try to stay away from the left side of the slope," Joanne cautioned. "That's where the snow sculpting is going on."

"Oh, right now?" Mimi asked. "Let's try and make it for the judging. I love snow sculptures."

"Well, let's go!" Angel exclaimed. "I've been dying to try this!" She pushed off with her ski poles and was zooming down the hill in a blur.

Everyone else took off in similar fashion, although a couple of them weren't very, shall we say gifted, at the exercise. Mark, for example, was reminiscent of a person experiencing an earthquake. To a casual observer, it was remarkable to find that such a shaky being could move at the speed Mark was going. However, the next sequence of events was quite foreseeable.

Roger, who was more toward the mediocre side of the skiing scale, was following a few dozen yards behind Mark and saw the outcome of his friend's misfortune. At first it seemed that Mark was getting the hang of it, but then it looked like he hit something hidden in the snow. In reality he had just hit a small bump in the snow, but his already clumsy stature made it looked like he had hit a rake or something. He began to stumble, desperately trying to get his balance back to no avail. Just when it seemed that he might steady himself, he came upon a young kid in a black rubber tube jetting down the mountain. "Look out!! Look out!!" Mark cried, but before the kid could even process the cries of panic, Mark barreled into him, knocking him out of his tube and onto the snow. Mark and the tube kept going, out of control, down the mountain while the kid sat in the snow wondering what hit him. A few moments later as Mark realized he and the tube were not going to get untangled and this situation wasn't going to end well, he decided that the best thing to do would be to fall forward onto the tube, to at least have some kind of squishy protection from whatever hard object he was going to run into. Unfortunately falling onto your stomach at such a speed on such a bouncy object is bound to create a reaction. Mark found this out too late as the tube leaped off course with him on it, straight into the forest where he ran into a pine tree. Despite the pain in his head that was shooting throughout his body, Mark was just glad that the nightmare was over.

Roger shouted, "Oh my god!" as he saw what happened. He tried slowing to a stop but unfortunately didn't know how. Instead, for all his efforts he was shifted left toward the snow sculpting and went whooshing toward a snowman that was so artfully crafted. The creator stared in horror as a blond man she didn't know headed straight for her handiwork. "I can't stop!!" Roger screamed. But then, by some miracle he began slowing down. He had no idea what he was doing to slow himself, but didn't move, knowing that somehow he was responsible.

Roger breathed a sigh of relief as he came to a stop just inches from the snowman. The woman let out her own sigh. "Oh thank god you stopped," she said. "You see, that's my—"

"RRRAAAARR!!" the snowman yelled, seeming to come to life. It turned around and advanced on the out-of-breath Roger, who screamed and trolloped away as fast as possible in his skis.

"—husband," the woman finished with a questioning look. She shrugged. "I guess he doesn't understand performance sculpture," she remarked.

--

Meanwhile, Collins was not having a very easy time either. Angel tried her best to coach him, but he kept falling on his butt whenever he tried to tackle even a smallish hill.

"Lean forward," Angel instructed, whizzing past Collins.

"Ea-easy for you to say!" he replied, struggling to keep his balance.

Before Angel could say something like "Don't give up!" she heard a shout followed by a cry of pain. She skidded to a stop and turned around to see Collins sprawled out on the snow, clutching his leg in agony. She gasped and cried "What happened?? Are you okay?"

Collins gritted his teeth. "Ahh….one of my skis got stuck in that hole…." He seethed with pain. "I think my leg is broken…."

"What? This hole?" Angel wondered, investigating the small hole which still had Collins' ski in it. She removed the ski and peeked inside. "It's a bunny hole! Oh, Collins they're so cute! Can we keep one?"

"Baby, my leg!"

"Oh right, sorry!" Angel exclaimed, going over to tend to him. She eyes the wound medicinally. "It does look broken," she conceded. "Don't worry, I'm gonna go get a medic, okay?" Kissing him and giving him a sympathetic look, Angel took off to find help.

--

NoV: ARG! Poor everyone!! Next time we will find out what happened and stuff. Stay tuned!!


	7. What's that in the sky?

NoV: Hey everyone! Time for another chapter! .

--

Quote of the day:

"4 out of 5 voices in my head say go back to sleep...and we're plotting to kill the fifth one..."

--

Maureen happily showed off her years of skiing experience to Joanne, who held her own in keeping up. Joanne was working so hard keeping up that she neglected to pay attention to where they were going. By the time she realized that there were no other people around, they were looking down into a valley surrounded by forest. Maureen slowed to a stop and looked at their surroundings.

"Pookie, are we lost?" she wondered.

"It would appear so," Joanne replied dryly. "There should be some kind of marker around somewhere that'll point us back to the lodge."

The two began to search for such a sign.

--

Mimi was back at the lodge enjoying some hot cocoa. She had easily made it down the mountain without falling once and was beginning to wonder where everyone else had gotten off to. Deciding that they had probably just gone back up to ski again, she snuggled into the couch by the fireplace and made herself comfortable.

--

"Mark?" Roger called into the general area where Mark had disappeared after shanghaiing that unfortunate kid's tube. "Man, a snowman just attacked me, so I don't feel like messing around! Where are you?"

There was a rustling of bushes and a groan. Roger followed these noises to find Mark, who was sprawled out on the ground, one leg still attached to a ski up in the air, the rubber tube wrapped around him like a safety vest.

"Mark!" Roger exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

"Roger," Mark said pitifully, "I don't wanna ski anymore….."

--

Angel sloshed through the snow in her grey faux fur boots. She carried her skis in her hand as she approached a man renting snowmobiles, which she decided would be the best way to get Collins safely down the mountain.

"I need to borrow one of these," she said, although the thought of a motorized thing that was so much like the jet ski she had wrecked earlier that month, frightened her.

"Forty dollars an hour," the balding man informed her. He wore bright, reflective snow goggles and a cheap-looking silky jumpsuit.

"I don't have any money on me," Angel said, patting her nonexistent pockets. The flirty skirt and snow pants did not come equipped to hold money. "My boyfriend broke his leg up on the mountain, I'm trying to help him!"

"Hey, it's not up to me, okay?" the man said defensively. "All I know is you gotta pay me forty dollars before you can take one of these with you!"

Angel pointed to the sky. "Oh look! A distraction!" she cried. When the man turned away, she snagged some keys from the table and hopped onto a snowmobile.

Before the rental guy could say, "Hey, wait a minute!" she was zooming off on the snowmobile.

--

NoV: Yes, the shortest chapter ever! But it's just a little fill-in until I can post some more! . Loviekins! . Happy V-day!!!!!


	8. More for you!

ZOMG! Updating after so many months feels strange…

AN: That rubber tube Mark had wrapped around him in the last chapter was the deflated rubber tire that he knocked that poor child off of while tumbling down the mountain.

--

Quote of the day:

"To speak kindly does not hurt the tongue."

-French proverb

--

Mimi sat in the fireplace room of the lodge, anxiously waiting for her friends' return. She had shed her heavy winter coat after the toasty fire warmed her up considerably. After a while of sitting there with her hot chocolate, she began to notice a couple of guys at a table near her who kept staring and pointing, whispering to one another. She self-consciously pulled her low-cut top further up.

Trying to ignore the stares, she gazed out the window at the snowy scene, wondering why no one else had made it back yet. Suddenly, she felt a sharp, cold sensation on her chest. Not wanting to be obscene, but still wanting relief from the freezing cold feeling, she pulled her top forward, to reveal her upper body only to herself to find the offending object that had gotten lodged there. She looked appalled as she realized it was a rather large piece of ice that had slid down the front of her shirt to come to rest in the middle of her bra.

"Yes! Fifty points!" one of the guys from the other table exclaimed. They gave each other a high-five and got up from the table to leave.

Mimi, completely outraged, plucked the ice cube from her shirt and threw it to try and hit one of them. Unfortunately, it didn't make its mark and Mimi huffed, hoping no one else had seen the event.

Before she got embarrassed enough to leave the area, Angel came running into the hotel, scanning the room before landing on Mimi. Angel ran over to her friend and cried, "Mimi, do you have the keys to the van? Collins broke his leg skiing and we have to take him to the hospital!"

"Oh my god!" Mimi replied. "Yeah, let's go!"

Angel led the way, weaving through the tables, Mimi not far behind. Before they could leave the fireplace area, however, Mimi slipped, falling on the same slick piece of ice that had previously been down her shirt. Angel impatiently turned around to help her fallen friend and said, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I probably shouldn't have tried to ice skate with all this furniture around," Mimi mumbled. Angel chose to ignore that and dragged Mimi to her feet and out the door where Collins was still waiting on the snowmobile.

--

"Let's take the skilift down the rest of the mountain. It lets people off and on at the midpoint around here somewhere," Roger suggested.

"Good idea," Mark agreed, terrified at the thought of going down the rest of the slope on skis or foot. The pair set off to locate the ski lift and did so without much difficulty.

"Okay, now, you remember how to get on the ski lift, right Mark?" Roger said patronizingly as they approached the embarking point.

Mark rolled his eyes. "Yeah, very funny," he replied, recalling earlier in the day when he had struggled with the task of boarding the lift.

"Now, don't forgot," Roger went on, "you've gotta put your whole butt in the seat. Not just half. This is not something you can half-ass do."

Mark fought with his urge to strike his friend or to take a ski lift down by himself, but in reality, he realized that he might actually need help when it came to getting off the thing. Instead, he just got into position beside Roger, awaiting the next lift to sweep them away into the sky above the powdery snow. As soon as he had boarded the chair properly with no glitches, Mark silently stuck his tongue out at Roger, realizing the best revenge of all was to succeed in the task.

Before they knew it, they were preparing to disembark the ski lift, the bottom of the hill coming up to meet them. Then suddenly, the entire chair lift network came to a halt, leaving them excruciatingly close to the bottom.

"Oh great," Mark grumbled, "we're thirty feet from the bottom and we get stuck. Who knows how long we'll be trapped up here. I don't suppose you brought your guitar?"

Roger sighed in annoyance, shaking his head. He gauged the distance between himself and the snow below, wondering if he could simply jump down from that height. With a shrug, he said, "It's not that far. I think we could jump and not get too hurt."

"Are you crazy?" Mark immediately screamed, as if knowing what had been going on in his blond friend's head. "You jump down from up here, you'll end up in the hospital. Or dead!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Roger said with a snort. "No one ever died jumping thirty feet into soft, fluffy snow!"

"Yeah, well you and I will probably be the first in history to die then, what with our luck!" Mark said, panicky.

"Look, if you don't wanna jump, I will. You can stay up here," Roger insisted, preparing for the jump.

"No!" Mark cried, clinging to him. His fear of heights combined with his new fear of snow and mountains to transform him into a grasping, terrified creature. "You can't leave me up here all alone! I'll die for lack of human contact."

Roger found new motivation for getting off the ski lift: getting away from Mark's newfound clinginess. "Um…I'll bring back a ladder," he ensured his friend.

"No, we must wait to be rescued," Mark insisted, never letting go of Roger's hand which he now tucked under his folded arms.

Roger, too afraid of what would happen if he tried to wrench his arm free, resigned to waiting for help, which he was certain would be hard to come by.

--

"We're lost!" Maureen wailed for the hundredth time.

Joanne tried her best to ignore her, trying to get her bearings and point them back in the right direction. What she wouldn't give for a compass and a map!

"We're lost!"

And a muzzle. "Maureen, look, screaming 'We're lost!' every five seconds obviously isn't helping. Why don't you….climb that tree and see if you can see the lodge?"

Maureen sniffed impetuously. "Why do I have to climb the tree? Why don't you climb it, Mother Nature?"

"Because you're the one with the specialty hiking boots with the cleats," Joanne pointed out.

Maureen looked at her superior boots and said, "Fine." She began a slow trek up the tree, grabbing onto unsteady branches, hoping she wasn't going to fall.

Joanne watched her carefully, ready to do what she could to help should any danger befall her girlfriend. She stiffened when she felt hot air on her neck. Hot air that had no business out in the woods in the freezing wind and snow. She turned ever-so-slowly to gape into a long, furry brown face and two black, inquisitive eyes.

Joanne, even with her inferior boots, beat Maureen to the top of the tree. To Maureen, she was just a blur of flesh and fabric that nearly knocked her from the branch she was clinging to. "Pookie, what the hell are you doing?" she exclaimed, watching Joanne panting for breath up on her perch.

"Moose!" Joanne screamed.

Maureen paled and looked down at the bottom of the tree where a large moose was looking up at them questioningly.

"OH MY GOD!" Maureen wailed, struggling to climb up to Joanne's height. Once they were on the same level, the two women held each other close, crying and breathing heavily.

The moose bent down to eat some grass. "It's attacking!" Maureen screamed. Joanne clung to the back of Maureen's jacket like a lifeline.

"HELP!" they both screamed into the dimming horizon.

--

Angel fluffed pillows under Collins' broken leg after finally getting him back to the lodge and settled from the emergency room. She flitted around the fireplace room bringing him hot chocolate and magazines and tending to him like the mother hen that she is.

Mimi turned her gaze from the window to look back at Angel and Collins. "Guys, I'm getting worried. They should be back by now."

"You guys should go look for them," Collins suggested. "I would but—" He gestured at his bound limb. "Broken leg."

"But I want to stay with you and make you better!" Angel protested.

"No, you girls need to stick together if you're gonna go out there," Collins insisted. "I'll be much safer alone in here than Mimi will out there."

"But all the ski bunnies are gonna flock to you and your broken leg," Angel pouted.

Collins grabbed her gently by the nose and wiggled it. "You're the only ski bunny for this out-of-commission rabbit," he said.

Angel gave him a kiss on that and went with Mimi to search for their friends.

--

NoV: Yahai! Another chapter all wrapped up for you!


	9. Falling!

NoV: Hello! It has been so long, my friends! Too long! .

--

Quote of the day:

"Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life."

-Terry Bratchett

--

Mimi and Angel trudged through the darkening evening and snow, ever alert to find the location of Mark, Roger, Maureen and Joanne. Upon realizing that the skilift was frozen in the sky, they realized that their friends could very well be stuck on it.

"Hopefully they'll get it started up again soon and we can get inside," Angel said, shivering despite her layered outfit.

Mimi blew warm breath into her hands. "Brrr…" she commented. Spying a snack bar promising hot chocolate, Mimi nudged her friend in its direction. They were the small shack's only customers, as it was getting dark and nearing closing time. The two frozen gals ordered some cocoa in hopes that it could provide them with some warmth.

As they sat quietly at a snow-covered picnic table, they watched the sun begin to dip below the horizon casting long shadows across the fresh powder. Mimi shivered in earnest, even as she brought the Styrofoam cup of hot liquid to her mouth. "I'm f-freezing! W-we should w-wait inside!"

Angel's teeth chattered in corroboration. "But wh-what if they're not on the lift? They c-could be lost!"

"F-five more minutes," Mimi said, finally. "And then I-I'm g-going in!"

A swoosh and a pitter-patter sounded above Angel's head. The poor drummer looked up just in time to see a large amount of snow tumble off a tree limb and bury her. In her shock and perhaps mad desperation, Angel flung her cup of hot chocolate all over Mimi, who jumped up screaming. Shaking her arms to try to rid herself of the burning liquid, Mimi backed up into a tall, metal light pole. While she rested against the structure for a few moments, raking the droplets from her blouse and pants, the liquid running down her back melded with the frozen pole, thereby bonding Mimi to it. Angel managed to burrow herself out of the snow, now colder than ever, and went apologetically to her friend.

"Sorry, Mimi!' she exclaimed, taking one of Mimi's hands in hers in a friendly gesture. "I just panicked!"

Mimi, who had calmed considerably, replied, "It's okay_, bebe_, the stuff was cooled off a lot. I'm not burned." She started to pull away from the light pole when she realized something else. "But I am stuck to this pole…"

--

"You move sixteen tons and whaddya get?"

"Another day older and deeper in debt," Mark sang along with Roger. He sighed. No progress had been made to get them off the skilift and this made the sixth time they'd sung that chorus. "Maybe we _should_ just jump down," he suggested.

"Too late," Roger informed him. "My butt is frozen to the bench….so would I be right in assuming that you're past the panic mode?"

"I can't be panicked and frozen at the same time," Mark said. "Don't have the energy for both."

Roger looked at him, as if sizing him up for something. Mark paled under the scrutiny. "What?" he asked fearfully.

"I bet if I gave you a good push you'd get unfrozen pretty quick," Roger mused. "Then you could go for help."

"You push me off this skilift and I'll leave you out here!" Mark threatened.

"Oh well," Roger said. For a moment Mark thought he'd given up on the idea until he added, "It's a risk I'm willing to take!" And with that he shoved Mark with every last reserve of energy he had. Mark's butt was dislodged from the freezing bench and he began to plummet toward the snow below him. In a frightful moment of acrophobia, Mark thrashed through the air to grab onto something that would save him. Unfortunately what he grabbed was Roger's leg, which uprooted the guitarist and plunged both of them to the soft, wet ground.

--

Maureen and Joanne, exhausted and hungry, still clung to one another high in the pine tree. "Is it gone?" Maureen asked about the moose that had kept them prisoner in their pine cone jail.

"So what if it is?" Joanne demanded with renewed fervor. "Even if we can't see that bloodthirsty animal, it's probably hiding, just waiting for us to climb down so it can eat us or spit on us or whatever moose do!"

"How can you even be sure that mooses attack people?" Maureen demanded. "You were the one who spooked me about them in the first place! I think you're just paranoid!" She added under her breath, "Just like you are about everything else…."

"Don't think I didn't hear you Maureen! We're only three centimeters apart!" Joanne snapped.

"Whatever," Maureen replied, shifting away from her girlfriend. "I'm climbing down and getting back to the hotel….wherever it is."

As soon as she put her foot on a lower branch, they heard a moose-like bellow. Maureen lost her balance at this and went crashing through ten feet of branches, screaming in moose terror all the while. "Joanne help!!! The moose is gonna get me!!!"

Joanne began to quickly climb down after her, concern for Maureen's chances of faring against an enraged moose clouding everything else on her mind. "Hang on! I'll get you!" she cried.

Maureen landed on the ground with an "Oof!" with Joanne close behind. They grabbed onto one another, looking in every direction for the beast that had terrified them so. Another bellow from a few yards away sent them running off into the night.

--

Collins sat next to the roaring fire, propped amidst a plethora of soft pillows. He watched a soccer game broadcast from the big screen TV in front of him as he sipped a cup of cocoa. Had he not been enjoying himself so much, he might have realized that it had gotten dark outside and none of his friends had made it back to the lodge.

--

NoV: WoW! Feels great to update this! I might actually finish it this time! Hooray!! .


	10. Hot and Cold

NoV: Time for another update! .

--

Quote of the day:

"Artificial intelligence is never a match for natural stupidity."

-unknown

--

Angel tugged at Mimi's arms as hard as she could, unable to separate the seat of her snow pants from the pole. Huffing with the effort, Angel said, "Look, here's the deal, Mimi. I'ma go find Roger and Mark and see what they can come up with. Hopefully with their know-how, ingenuity and male mechanical brains they'll be able to get you free."

As if to contradict Angel's kind words about them, Mark and Roger approached at that very moment, with Roger giving the comment, "Mimi, don't you know better than to dance around a frozen pole?"

"We're on vacation, Mimi," Mark chimed in, filming the event. "Can't you spend one day without thinking about work?"

"You guys have ten seconds to shut the hell up and get me unstuck from this pole before I detach myself from my pants and stomp you into the ground!" Mimi growled.

A naked Mimi in public, while alluring, was deadly and quite frankly terrifying, Roger and Mark decided. "We just need to find some warm water to pour on the pole," Mark theorized. "That'll unfreeze you."

"But hot water is what got her stuck in the first place!" Angel protested. "Well….hot chocolate, anyway…."

"It must be something about the elements of sugar and cocoa that bonded to the ice…." Mark replied. "Although….it's highly unlikely and pretty strange…."

"Well, Professor," Mimi said impatiently, "if you're done explaining why there's no scientific reason for me to be stuck here, would you mind working on a theory to unstick me??"

"Uh…" Mark cleverly said.

"Hot water," Roger reminded him.

"Yes, we need to get some hot water…."

"I'll go to the hotel to find some," Angel announced, trudging back toward the lodge so she could secretly check up on Collins while getting the water for Mimi.

--

Collins still sat comfortably in his big cushy chair, the pain pills he had taken for his leg making him more than pain-free. A Swedish looking-woman approached him, carrying a gallon-sized steel thermos and a handful of Styrofoam cups. "Sir," she wondered pleasantly, "would you like a complimentary cup of hot apple cider?"

"Oh, no thank you," Collins replied, presenting his mug of hot chocolate to her, "I've still got some cocoa."

"Okay, well just let me know if you need anything," she said with a ridiculously cheerful smile. The blond woman then mistakenly tried to get to her next guest by stepping over Collins' broken, outstretched leg. She lost her balance because of the heavy thermos in her hand and pitched forward, jarring Collins' leg roughly. Nearly a gallon of steaming apple cider spilled directly onto Collins' lap and even the high dose pain pills could not compete with the pain in his scalded lap and his jolted leg.

"Shit!" he yelled. "You crazy, apple-cider bitch!"

The woman jumped up from the floor in a tizzy. "Oh god, I'm so sorry!!!" she cried. "What should I do?? Get you a dry towel? Call you an ambulance? Do you want me to call the manager?"

"Just help me!" Collins wailed, trying to lift himself from the cider-saturated chair.

The distressed employee ran off to the front desk, all but throttling the front desk worker in her endeavor to obtain towels, aspirin, and a bucket of ice.

Amidst this chaos, Angel strolled into the hotel, thinking all was right with the world. She sidled up next to the blond attendant who was anxiously awaiting her supplies. The front desk worker returned with the required items and handed them to the woman. "What is all this for?" he wondered.

The apple cider distributor threw back a reply as she ran toward Collins. "I spilled hot apple cider all over a man with a broken leg!" she exclaimed.

Angel turned to the man. "Well, I just need a bucket of—oh my god, Collins!" she shrieked, the relevance of what the blond woman had said suddenly sinking in. She ran off toward the lobby where she had last seen poor Collins. She found him being dried and placated by the blond woman, who was promising a free night at the lodge and so on.

"Oh Collins!" Angel said sympathetically. She kneeled beside his chair and took his hand. "What happened?"

Cringing from the pain, Collins replied, "Hey baby….apple cider got spilled on my lap…."

"And I am SO sorry!" the attendant cried. "It was my mistake and I will do anything to make the remainder of your stay here as comfortable and enjoyable as possible!"

"Anything?" Angel asked deviously.

--

After they ran out of "fleeing from the deadly moose" steam, Maureen and Joanne continued to slog through the snow in the dark.

"We're completely lost!" Maureen whimpered desperately. "They'll find our bodies frozen and huddled together, starved and not on speaking terms…."

"If you don't quit whining, they will," Joanne snapped.

Maureen fell to her knees in the snow, ready to give up and cry. "We're going to DIE out here!!"

Joanne rolled her eyes and was about to say something sarcastic when a light in the distance caught her eye. Narrowing her eyes, she determined that they must be headed back toward the lodge. "Maureen!" she exclaimed, trying to pull the sobbing girl to her feet. "The light at the end of the tunnel! Civilization!! Come on, this way!"

"Really?" Maureen sniffled. "Oh I'm so happy!" They both began to run, unimpeded, toward the soft, glowing light. "Oh, warmth! Hot chocolate and central heating and fluffy cotton blankets!"

"Hot baths and warm fires and decaff lattes with whipped cream!" Joanne added.

They made it to the top of the hill, beyond which the inviting light shone with mesmerizing luster. They stood side by side and looked to the ten foot-high pole which marked the path for the ski slope, the lodge nowhere in sight. Underneath the pole, munching on a tiny patch of grass, was the moose.

It took them less than a second to have a simultaneous reaction. Screaming, they both dashed off into the woods behind them, terrified by the moose which surely would catch up with them and eat them.

--

Mark and Roger, trying not to crack jokes, stood waiting for Angel to return.

"It's been twenty minutes," Roger complained. "What's taking her?"

Mimi, exasperated at this point, grumbled, "Oh she and Collins are probably in there having sex while poor, forgotten Mimi remains out here in the cold, frozen to a pole!"

"Should I go in and check?" Mark wondered, really not wanting to walk in on the couple if they were, in fact, engaging, but at the same time wanting to get in from the cold.

Before anyone could make a reply to that, a sudden double-shriek resounded throughout the mountains and drew ever closer.

"Doesn't that sound like….." Roger began.

"Maureen and Joanne?" Mark wondered.

Sure enough, the two frost-bitten girls charged out of the forest, fast as lightning, seeming to not even notice their friends gathered around the pole, looking like some kind of tribal sacrifice ritual.

"HEY! Maureen, Joanne, will you see what's taking Angel so long with the bucket of hot water??" Mimi said very quickly, hoping they heard her.

They kept running, screaming something about a moose and central heating.

"What's gotten into them?" Mark wondered.

--

NoV: What, indeed? Well, hopefully this is starting to wrap up and I'll have the next one up by next week! .


End file.
